Chapter 346

I lay pinned beneath collapsed concrete, listening to the voices outside.

I tried to move my mouth, but no sound came out.

Only a hazy, dull drift of voices seeped into my head....

The voices of Se-gwang City’s Disaster Management Bureau agents, thinks thick with deep fatigue and bewilderment.

“First, we’ve prevented any further collapse. ...Over the radio, we’re switching from closure to rescue-focused operations from here on....”

“There are citizens in the concourse too.... ...Like this, too many people have died....”

“What do we do, Team Leader? The selection criteria....”

The voices grew more and more distant....

‘Ah.’

They won’t have time to save the person pinned down here. I understood the situation, very slowly.

The sound of their boots moving away—leaving the collapsed pile of concrete behind—spread as vibrations along the cold rebar pressed to my cheek....

“Agents.”

At that moment, a familiar voice rang out.

The Counseling Teacher’s voice.

Hoarse and cracked, it sounded low and clogged, as though they too were trapped inside the concrete like me....

“There is an agent, in here.......”

“...!!”

“They’re down, there.”

A brief stir seemed to rise among the agents, and then they drew closer.

“Who are you?”

“I... I’m the counselor at Se-gwang High School.”

“Ah!”

As if they recognized the identity at once, hurried footsteps rushed in. Then came the noise of something like concrete and rebar debris being cleared away.

With that movement, a structural fragment embedded in my back collapsed further to the side. I registered the pain spreading through my body in a dull thud....

I couldn’t move.

“Wait.”

A calm voice.

“...How did someone like you end up pinned down under there?”

“Pardon...? I’m... just a counselor....”

“.......”

A heavy silence fell. Through it, the sound of clearing debris continued....

“Something’s off. Back up.”

“Just a moment. If we move this... ngh!”

“...!!”

“H-hey, wait.”

At last, the sound of a heavy piece of debris dropping—someone sucking in a breath.

As if they’d seen something they never expected.

“The way they look....”

“It’s contamination. Get back.”

Footsteps, equipment clacking, friction scraping through the air....

“No, cough, it’s... not contamination.”

The Counseling Teacher’s voice, as though exposed to the open air now, was no longer muffled.

“Don’t worry....”

But it sank weakly, breathy.

“...‘Counselor.’ Are you aware of what state you’re in right now?”

“Yes. I’m... fine. But, down there....”

They sounded desperate.

“There’s an agent who carried me out on their back....”

“.......”

“They have special... abilities. They’ll definitely be useful.... So,”

Silence flowed.

None of the agents answered.

“...Agents?”

“What is that agent’s agent-name?”

“I... I still haven’t heard it.”

“...Then what about their affiliation? You should be able to tell from their jacket.”

“.......”

Slowly, an answer came.

“The jacket is... here. They gave it to me.... They aren’t... wearing it.”

“.......”

“.......”

“Isn’t this your jacket?”

“It looks... that way. But in truth, it isn’t....”

“.......”

“.......”

“Understood.”

“Agent...?”

I heard them backing away.

Their low conversation between themselves carried to my ears through the collapsed concrete....

“We can’t spend any more time. ...Move.”

“But...!”

“The circumstances don’t add up. That sacred being is already not normal. Even if we rescue them, we won’t be able to get much help. It’s already....”

“......B-but even if they aren’t an agent, there’s a person under there... they’ll die soon...!”

“Agent!”

The sound of someone grabbing a shoulder.

“Right now, there are tens of thousands of people in this city who are dying.”

“.......”

“And you want to spend more time for just one person whose survival isn’t even certain? If we make an exception to the rules, what happens to the other citizens we couldn’t save?”

“...Th-”

“Go. Before other citizens get here!”

But then.

“That line....”

The Counseling Teacher’s voice, slow.

“It’s too familiar.”

“.......”

“I’ve... heard it before, I think.”

I swallowed.

“What?”

“Don’t answer.”

“So, yesterday...?”

.......

“No... the day before yesterday too, and before that, and before that, and before that before that, and before that before that before that before that.......”

“H-hey, wait.”

“Back up!”

Even in the commotion outside, even through my already fogged mind, I listened as if the Counseling Teacher’s voice had seized me by the throat.

‘That’s....’

Because I’d realized it—chillingly similar....

...To me, not long ago.

‘They’ve become aware.’

That sensation I’d felt when I came to my senses inside the 613th May 4.

The Counseling Teacher was speaking it out loud.

“But the situation is different, so, yeah.... I burned to death.”

“Get back!”

“I think I burned while holding the door handle... right. Burned to death. I begged the agents for help while burning inside that mechanical room. That the collapsed concrete was blocking the door so I couldn’t get out.......”

“And you just left.”

“I thought it couldn’t be helped. I don’t resent you. Saving citizens comes first... I, well, but.”

“.......”

“How many times... are you saving citizens? Why does the same thing keep happening?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t listen.”

“Why does it keep... repeating... this is...... this is strange, cough, huh? Trapped....”

“Damn it.”

Footsteps turned urgent.

“Evacuate! Seal the platform. Seolpi, talisman!”

“That’s....”

“Seal?”

In that instant.

The atmosphere sank into something bizarrely, chillingly still.

“Right. That was it. ...Sealing.”

...!

I heard them murmur, as if possessed.

“After I burned to death inside there, I slipped out through the door and remained on the platform. Because that’s what I am. And for four days I was trapped, listening to citizens kill themselves, struggling to scan the surface, the outside, any way I could. Thinking I’d beg anyone—anything—to help this city... but then.”

.......

“You started some strange rite.”

My heart tightened.

“When I looked closely, it was a sacrificial rite. I wondered what kind of sacrifice you were offering to stop this, what sacrifices and costs you were willing to pay to save my students—my clients—burning with worry and also filled with ecstasy, desperately waiting for its completion....”

“The sacrifice was my clients.”

“You put countless people living in this city onto the ritual ground and offered them up. No—not only people. You scraped up every living thing, down to a single blade of grass on the surface. And then, and then....”

.......

“May 4 began again.”

I noticed a flash of realization cutting into my dulled mind like lightning.

‘Ah.’

A day repeating... wasn’t part of a catastrophic supernatural disaster.

‘It was part of the sealing rite....’

Then the reason the day repeated was probably two things....

To stop the spread of infection.

And....

To keep reviving and supplying living sacrifices to maintain the seal.

Se-gwang Special City was, like a self-generating facility, offering itself up as the sacrifice—supplying itself every day to sustain the city’s sealing....

Trapped on May 4.

‘Ah.’

A sickening cold settled into my body.

It wasn’t because I’d lost blood.

“So,”

.......

“My clients, again—everyone living gathered in this Gwangjin....”

The Counseling Teacher’s voice rang hollow across the platform.

...I couldn’t hear the agents anymore.

As if they’d already blocked off the collapsed platform with talismans and the like, the screams and noise and voices I’d been hearing a moment ago vanished—as if someone had flipped a switch.

It became quiet.

But.

A strange, bubbling presence pressed down.

‘...No.’

With effort, I lifted my head.

“So they’ll die miserably every day. And I’ll keep watching them, and I’ll burn to death. You used these hundreds of thousands, these millions of lives as bait instead of rescue. You lied to me with empty words, with sweet words on your tongue, and you....”

Thud.

I slammed my head down.

“......!”

Thud, thud....

“Agent....”

I let my head go, limp, where it struck the concrete.

I didn’t have the strength to move anymore—no energy, no force, nothing....

“Just, just a moment....”

Soon, I felt it as a wobbling vibration—someone moving alone.

Hands clearing the debris above me.

It took a painfully long time.

The sense of someone barely shifting something heavy—movements that seemed about to fail but didn’t break—continued, and then....

Snap.

At last, the chunk of cement that had been crushing down on my head was gone.

Light poured in, but....

I couldn’t see.

“.......”

Had I injured my head wrong?

All I felt, over my fogged mind, was someone moving a hand as if gently patting my head.

“It’s okay. It’ll be okay....”

With their one remaining hand, they soothed my head the way you would stroke an injured person’s hair.

Drip, drip. The sensation of hot droplets—like blood—falling onto my forehead made my head throb....

“...Did you come from outside to help me?”

I barely twitched a finger.

“Thank you....”

“.......”

“This city has been abandoned. Far from protecting it... I’m just a fox being offered up alongside it.”

A whisper trembling with rage and despair.

Splat.

Something collapses.

No.

‘As a counselor... you have to speak.’

I barely raised my arm and tapped them. Thump.

“Ah! Ah....”

“.......”

“Don’t worry.”

They tried to prop my upper body up and lift it onto their own leg.

“Even so, you will go outside.”

.......

...What?

“People from outside have a way to go back. It’s fine even if you can’t move. I’ll push you.... By attaching a small fox.”

Splat.

“Like letting someone slip out through the counseling office’s back door.”

Splat.

“A counselor can see off a client after the counseling ends.”

A laugh.

“Of course, an ordinary counselor couldn’t. Haha....”

Splat.

The feel of the hand on my head disappeared.

A sensation of something melting, sliding down my cheek, and dripping away onto the floor to vanish.

Now I heard only a voice in the air.

The Counseling Teacher’s faint voice.

“Before your breath cuts out and you’re placed on the sacrificial ritual ground—before you’re trapped in this May 4... I’ll send you back to where you originally were. Back to your workplace.”

Click.

I heard the sound of a doorknob being pulled.

And right after that, the feel of the floor supporting my back vanished—like a door had opened behind it.

My body fell into it.

To the other side of the door the counselor opened.

“Goodbye.”

I felt the touch of a small furry animal’s paws wrapping around my waist, and together we fell through empty space.......

.......

“Go back in peace. My client.”

That was the last thing.

***

‘......Ah.’

I slowly regained consciousness.

The pain throughout my body was gone like a lie, but an oddly sunken heaviness remained in my heart.

‘So that’s... how it was.’

Newly learned facts filled my head.

The Pleasant Research Institute, the true nature of the disaster, the sealing rite.......

Hoyuwon.

‘.......’

At the very end, Hoyuwon had seemed to almost lose their shape and collapse.

Was it because they’d tried to send me out by using some sacred—or wicked—power in their true form, rather than the safe identity of a “counselor”...?

I thought of the small fox’s touch that still felt like it should be clinging to my waist, but the sensation was already gone.

‘...Get up.’

This wasn’t the time to sink into stray thoughts.

I got out, but the other three people... right, I didn’t know what happened to Section Chief Lee Jaheon and the Deputy and Bronze Agent.

‘Please, I hope the section chief led them out properly.’

I hoped we all woke up outside together.

‘First, open your eyes.’

Then the counseling office’s fake sunlight would greet me, spilling down. I let out a breath and looked straight ahead......

“Ah, you’ve recognized it.”

.......

I looked straight ahead.

I saw a concrete wall.

The wall of the security isolation room in Daydream Inc’s basement.

And using that wall as a backdrop, I saw a director smiling brightly as they looked at me.

“130666.”

It was Director Cheongdallae.

“...!!”

What, what is this... what is....

-I’ll send you back to your workplace.

Wait.

Wait—!

No, no....

“You’re finally back. You were absent without leave for a long time.”

In a shock that felt like all the blood draining from my body, I stepped back—no, no....

“And you look incredibly weak. You even lost your body.”

The director flicked their hand.

In that hand was my contract—wait.

“Mm. It’ll be better to return you to how you looked when we signed. For work.”

My form melted—no.

It doesn’t melt, it doesn’t melt! I’m human! Endure, endure....

“You shouldn’t endure. You need to go back to your original form so it’s easier to settle into the security team suit. Since you don’t have a body, you can use the suit as your flesh and operate with it.”

No.

No....

“Now.”

I have to stand up and find the security team suit—no, refuse....

“Refuse? That’s a bit different from the contract terms.”

130666 is on Director Ho’s project! Working on the project, so that work comes first....

“Oh dear. That project doesn’t have a place for you anymore.”

.......

What?

“Director Ho started selecting different team members and running the project last year.”

...Last year?

Then how much time has passed...?

“They said you and a few team members were deployed on a long-term assignment, so you wouldn’t be used on the project for the time being....”

Director Cheongdallae looked at me.

The clear danger, the overwhelming violence—someone who slaughtered hundreds of thousands without hesitation, burned down the institute, and took the dream incubator.

A being who thought only of their own profit.

An evil that was terrifying because it was understandable, peering at me with delighted interest.

“Seems you had other circumstances?”

.......

“I can feel your fear.”

A cheerful voice.

“So? Did you find something interesting in the special city? About me?”

...!!

“Then you must have learned I don’t do anything that loses me money. That includes you.”

.......

“Now, get up. And put on the security uniform.”

I tried to rise.

No—then I realized I had no body.

I was... a mind, something bodiless, that infiltrated Se-gwang Special City through a dream and came back out....

“You have to take it out yourself.”

I moved forward. As I went toward the cabinet set into the concrete wall....

I tried to pass through the wall and shoot out into the corridor.

“Oh dear. You thought you could do that without a body?”

Ah.

“The walls of a secured area isolate the rank of what’s inside from what’s outside—even conceptually. Otherwise how could we isolate supernatural phenomena?”

.......

“Unless someone lets you out, there’s no other way.”

I looked back at the director.

“Clever, but unfortunate. Once you’re properly dressed, I’ll have to discipline you. How about killing a child?”

Please.

...I couldn’t do anything but approach the cabinet.

The hand opening the cabinet door trembled. Security team employee 130666—strangely exerting physical force without a body—stuck their head into the cabinet, and....

.......

I heard the sound of a bell.

-Found it.

I was dragged into the cabinet.

A tremendous pressure wrapped around me and yanked upward like I was being pulled out, and before long I was torn free from Daydream Inc’s security zone.

An alarm blared behind me.

But in an instant, like prey being seized by the nape, I was transferred—caught in something enormous.

Somewhere.

“Podo.”

“.......”

“Podo,”

I opened my eyes.

I turned my head and looked at my arm.

It was there.

I looked at my hand.

It was there.

It moved.

I had a human body....

“.......”

But just now, just now...!

“Huhk, huhh...!”

“It’s okay.”

Panting, I tried to steady myself to the rhythm of the sensation patting my back. Breathe, breathe....

“It’s all over. You’re safe....”

I composed myself.

“.......”

“Podo.”

I lifted my head.

...Agent Choi.

The Black Turtle Team 1 agent with the pale face gave a grin and set the ritual bell they’d been holding off to the side.

Blood spattered from the bell.

A trembling voice spoke.

“Good to see you. ...It’s been 293 days.”